City Market

If you are a little depressed about the cards life has dealt you and you've managed to build a little whining tower with them (like I have), City Market at 5 AM will bring it crashing down. However, that was not the stated purpose when my friend and I plotted to drive down to City Market at 4.30 AM one Friday morning. We just wanted to do something random. It was a bit of bad timing though - the morning of Varalakshmi Puja meant that prices and the crowd had as much as quadrupled overnight.

Our bleary eyes turned wide when we stepped out of the car. Why were so many people up and about at 5 in the morning? The only protective armor we had was a cloth bag A had brought along. And our elbows. I've often wondered how people get trampled to death in festival melas, and I got my answer here. In all the melee, we couldn't really figure out what we were stepping on. It could have been anything from rotten vegetables to a human head, I could not have told the difference. It took a lot of elbowing and jostling and all the power of our 5'2" frames to push through the crowd and get into the market.

The early morning light and the orange sodium vapor lamps reflect off the reams and reams of marigold and chrysanthemum laid out in tall coils like some unending Hanuman's tail. No way to stand and stare though. There is every possible color of roses stacked around. There are tens of flowers I do not even know the names of. We jostled and elbowed some more and found that it was only the entrance to the market that was so crowded. Once we are through the entrance, I make the mistake of looking down. In the orange glow, I see that we had been stepping through ankle-high muck all along. Perhaps a foot-high in places. I do not go in for a closer look, it must simply be a rich mix of every possible waste you could imagine. Hmm. I have had enough discomfort. This is not my playground.

A hundred bodies pressed against each other. The stench of survival. Flowers in the millions,

but the fragrance long gone. Here a young man struggles with a huge stack of flowers over his head, a bundle much bigger than he should try to carry. Flowers - a burden for him, a blessing for me. Two sides, as always. As everything else. An old lady stacks up shriveled jacket potatoes, remains of the previous day perhaps. A couple of nuns stand by the side, a little taken aback by the crowd. We make eye contact and smile. Fish out of the water.

We buy a few bunches of flowers. We do not haggle. Maybe it is guilt that did not allow us to even try. We wiggle our way out again. I turn to take a photo, just to say we were here too. After a few more unspoken resolutions to count our blessings, we leave. A gives me a warm hug when she drops me off. I reciprocate with extra warmth; I suppose I just want to share my joy over the cards I've been dealt.

What's to love about Coorg?

I think I have been to Coorg district about 53 times so far. Ok, maybe not, maybe just about 5 times. Rafting in the Barrapole, some lame homestays, some lovely ones, a few more somewhere in between. Hospitality, lacking in class perhaps, but compensated by the warmth and sincerity of the homestay owners.

I have been to Kabbe Cottages, one of the most delightful homestays I've had the fortune to stay in. And the only one with class, let me add. So good that I went there a second time, and sent my Dad and Mom and their gang along with a jackfruit to experience their hospitality and the lovely environs. Yes, Kabbe's display of those ten million fireflies jamming on the trees in absolute symphony remains undefeated as one of the top sights I have encountered. That image can hold its own against even the mighty mountain - desert - valley views of Leh.

Kushalnagar - one visit isn't good enough for this lovely Tibetan settlement. It is difficult to imagine how it would be if I had to leave my hometown and settle 2000 kilometers away. Humans can take a lot of adversity indeed. The air is different. The guys are cuter; the women hotter; the temples different; the food curious. Namdroling enthralls with colorful wall paintings and golden towers and touristy stores. In spite of the crowds and the kids and the wailing babies, the place is peaceful. It's perhaps the prayers of a thousand displaced souls that makes this place so powerful and peaceful.

Namdroling might be crowded, but Kagyu is still undiscovered. Perhaps because the parking lot is still not cleared of grass, or maybe the anthills still stand undisturbed. Perhaps they couldn't rustle up enough money to break them down to make the circular garden, the plan of which is obvious from the pathway that leads up to the monastery. Even the imposing steps that lead up are incomplete - lines zigzag across the un-tiled steps. Inside, blue Bhutanese currency is pressed into the offering bowl alongside the incense sticks that have burned out now. Kagyu and its bee colonies stand atop a little hillock, inviting and intimidating at the same time. I want it to stay my secret sanctuary in Kushalnagar - for some more time at least.

Madikeri - that cute little town, oh! The elevation of St. Michael's church lifts you up along with it as you walk in. The prayer service - Mass - is underway inside. There is a little girl, perhaps 7 walking outside the church along with her elder brother. She smiles back at me, her eyes brighten. Playing truant, no doubt. Their sister walks out after a while, wagging her finger in disapproval. No way to get into the good books of Daddy or God.

Madikeri town is normal - we wander around its narrow lanes. I love the way the roads go up and down and up again. There is the drunk by the corner; his friends are trying to revive him. Wait, going by the way they are shoving him around, maybe they aren't friends. There is the old coffee estate owner ('one in Sunticoppa and the other here in Madikeri') who sweet-talks me into buying instant coffee and bay leaves. It's not much, he says. It's a lot, considering I never intended to buy from you, I reply. I look around. He sells estate coffee, Coorg spices and electronic printing. We wave goodbye. There is of course, your Malalyalee chai shop, selling pazham pori. We tuck into oily pazham pori and masala tea. Our search for bamboo shoot pickle continues. We end up buying 'malai vaazha pazham' - that roughly translates to mountain banana. The taste is as complicated as a single malt - plain banana in the beginning, honey in the middle and a coconut cream flavor finish.

My experience with Coorgi style pork curry has grown better with every trip to Coorg. Perhaps I am learning to appreciate it more; perhaps the taste is actually better. But a gushing Reena aunty happily shares her recipe, which I have forgotten now. Like every other recipe I earnestly asked for in Coorg.

As the clouds rush at touching distance, I am told that November and December are good months for stargazing. Gotta go back then, I make a note in my head. My binoculars hang useless around my neck.

Back to Bangalore, pleasantly awakened to the fact that the weather was absolutely comparable to Madikeri itself. Well, I couldn't touch the clouds and the roads aren't all that up and down, but that's alright.

The fragrance of the big, green, healthy elaichi takes me right back to Madikeri. Cloves and Marathi Mokku form an irreplaceable part of my spice box now. All from Coorg, of course. The cinnamon in my coffee and the honey in my masala chai will keep Coorg alive in my head for a while... until I go back.

Chikmagalur – Time-lapsing in a coffee forest a.k.a. “Write short notes on your weekend trip to Chikmagalur(5 marks)”

Amidst the craggy mountainscapes of the Sahyadri range of the Western Ghats is nestled the average everyday Indian town of Chikmagalur. The town and the entire district wear a small-town calm; the shops are small, the buildings are sleepy, the signboards are only in Kannada and the people have an air of of small-town innocence. Wikipedia rather ungenerously describes Chikmagaluru district as “not known for well maintained roads”. There’s a lot of other things about this place that make up for that part, though.

Like coffee. Coffee invigorates. Coffee energizes. So we made sure we stayed away from it for two lazy days in the coffee estates of Chikmagalur! Actually, ‘coffee forests’ would be a more fitting term to describe the acres of plantations in Chikmagalur. Reams of rich deep green carpet the landscape. The coffee berries are out in full force now; some are a resplendent red agaisnt the deep green – it’s a sight for the sore soul. Others await the merry sunshine to blush into that shade of red that warms the coffee-planter’s heart.

The jeep safari to our camping site rattles us down to our bone marrow. ‘It’s daily business’; our driver nonchalantly brushes off our observation on the difficulty of driving on a road on its last lap of existence.

The brooding clouds add generously to the magical eerieness of the campsite. We walk to the sunset/sunrise view point – it is splendid. We are at the very edge of the cliff and there is a sheer drop to the valley below. We sit down on the bare rocks. On closer inspection, we see that the ‘bare rocks’ are of course, teeming with life that’s very capable of crawling up our legs. Ants and a variety of bugs make themselves confortable in the damp mossy forest floor. Bright red spore capsules, all of a centimetre tall, provide a contrast to the moss’ glass green (Darn, should have gotten Kiwi to take a close-up snap!)

There’s all kinds of food – delicious Nutella-Banana sandwiches which overnight turned into Ant-ella sandwiches with some insistent ants drowning in the Nutella. (I wonder how it would be to drown in a Nutella river, or pond if you like?) There’s a big citrusy fruit we do not know the name of and the largest cucumber I have ever seen generously donated by the caretaker Ranganna. We also manage to pull together something that remotely resembles sambar rice and veggies.

It’s time to pitch tents – never knew it was so much fun. And time-lapse photography takes grip. You can see the very funny results here.

Engineering brains are put to good use as the guys build a tripod that supports an umbrella to protect the camera while capturing the clouds at a rate of 1 shot a minute… results here! I quietly rue the lack of a chicken that could have roasted gently over a warm fire ably aided by the tripod. Yeah, good roast wild chicken would have done marvellous justice to that tripod! I know atleast one other member of the group felt the same way too!

Some unnecessary brain exercise follows – for the record, I hereby state that the longest game in the history of ‘bluff’ lasting 3.5 hours was played in a 4-person Wildcraft tent under stormy conditions on a remote hilltop in a coffee plantation somewhere near the town of Aldur which is around 12 km from Chikmagalur. Needless to say, the nuances of faking things was lost on yours truly. Indeed, I was the richest player with the thickest stack of cards through most of the game!

Time blinks by. Time to return, the townsfolk looking at us quizzically, wondering why we city-folk want to be there anyway. A change of scene and scenery? To get away… from what? The trick, as we city-folk know, is to get out of there before the inconveniences get to us.

Chikmagalur – Camping, time-lapse photography, building tripods, cooking and chopping and cleaning! And cards! Hey, this wasn’t such a lazy trip after all, was it?

Credits: Photo and Videos – Kiwi

1. Ooh Leh Leh!

It’s possible and quite alright to die on a trip to Leh. God knows, the landscape presents you with enough opportunities. One misplaced wheel on a loose stone could send you tumbling over an obliging cliff. Spend too long atop a high mountain pass and you can die of AMS. Or if its your time to go, you could be hit by a well-timed stone shooting down the mountains in one of those specially laid out ‘Shooting Stone Zones’. However, all this is not deterrent enough to the scores who flock to this cosy city ensconced deep within the Trans-Himalaya.

A trip to this kind of place is hard to blog about. You are forced to take constant refuge in superlatives to describe the experience and you run out of them long before you are finished. Over 8 days, all my two friends and I could do was collectively gape, gasp, sip tea and take it all in as we crossed the highest, second highest and most difficult motorable passes in the world, rode Bactrian camels on sand dunes at 10000 ft, bit into the juiciest apricots just like travellers on the Silk route did a 1000 years ago and camped on the shores of a salt water lake at 14000 feet. We even encountered some angels diguised as Ladakhis. Now that you kinda get the picture, let me try and tell you a little more.

A flight to Delhi and an overnight bus to Manali later, our real journey begins. Now, any good trip requires that the journey itself be half the destination. The Manali-Leh highway pretty much tops the list of good trips by this requirement. The landscape is pure drama: laughing streams, smiling valleys, chilling passes and cheeky lakes, frowning deserts and an occasional rainbow to light up the spirit. Stay within your vehicle, and you are left breathless by all you see. Step out of the protective cover; you are left in no doubt whatsoever of your littleness and vulnerability. You can’t help but wonder what excuse human beings have to be in this kind of place anyway. Apart from the present-day obvious reason – this is en route to the much-disputed border between India and China – it’s the other usual suspect – money.

No one has to tell you that money goes very far. It always has. For thousands of years now. Through recorded history, commerce and trade have cut across deserts and mountains and valleys, including these mighty ranges. And Leh apparently was an important stopover for the traders of yore. Goods ranging from silk yarn and salt, Banaras brocade and cannabis were transported through the mountains and into the city. As you drive on the Manali-Leh highway, it’s difficult to comprehend how long lines of mules and men ever made it across this treacherous terrain thousands of years ago.

Money takes you quite far in present-day Leh as far as comfortable travel goes. A dramatic jeep ride with a one night stop-over costs 10-15K depending on the type of vehicle. Our TATA Sumo came with the dependable Tashi who steered us through some heart-stopping mountain roads over the course of 32 hours. Patiently stopping at every point for our trip photographer, Tashi was the best we could have asked for. His taciturnity hid a controlled aggression that you definitely need to take on the twists, turns, gravel and rocks that the Manali-Leh highway throws at you.

We slowly get acclimatized to the mountains and to each other as we make our way to the promise of snow and Rohtang La, the first pass one hits on the road to Leh. The winding road plays host to some whacked out weekend traffic. We encounter a triad of young Punjabis driving a Santro with two of the passengers seated on the bonnet of the car. This road is also where you find the last of the ‘normal’ toilets attached to little shacks meant for ‘customers only’. Thankfully, the tourist madness dies away as soon as you cross the Rohtang La, and the drama begins. We were treated to some spectacular action; after a double rainbow over a valley, tall and mighty mountain streams and pretty conifers, we wheel into Keylong. The little town does not appear very friendly by night; however the sight of the beautiful women of Himachal may encourage you to take a short walk around town. Tashi chose some interesting accommodation, the sheer splendor of which was revealed to us the next morning. (I realized eventually that waking up to brilliant views was part of the standard package in this part of the country.) What can you say when you can open up your window to welcome a cloud into your bedroom: I certainly felt as light as an angel for a few precious moments?

The second day took us through La-La land, in order, Baralacha La, Naki La, Lachlung La, Tanglang La. Tanglang La is the highest point one hits on this road. It’s also where mountain sickness hits high and hard. The spine-tingling Ghata loops do not help your cause, but the sheer discomfort that you experience when you step out into the slicing wind at any of these La’s is in a class of its own and worth all the trouble!

If mountain passes are not your thing, the Morre plains are sure to floor you. Its a thrilling white expanse of sand at 15000 feet that stretches out impressively for about 40 kms. The drama element is joyfully contributed by cunning sand-drifts that trap many an unsuspecting vehicle with predictable regularity. The journey is mostly downhill from here, or atleast its at heights that relieve your mountain sickness.

We glide through towns with exotic names like Gya, Upshi, Karu and soon land in Leh. We arrive haggard and zapped, tired out of our wits by mild mountain sickness – well, atleast I was. Our first angel of the trip was in the form of Rimchen, erstwhile member of the Indian national ice hockey team and owner of the exquisite and aptly named Shanti guest house where you really are treated like part of the family. A little research reveals that ice hockey is a popular sport in Ladakh, Kashmir and Shimla and we do in fact have a team that is all set to make its first ever international appearance. For my suspicious Hyderabadi friend Rimchen’s niceness was too much to take. He waited for the catch; I am glad to say he is still waiting. We gratefully accepted the rooms allotted to us. And I am still grateful to our gracious host who lofted my bag up two flights of stairs! My luck only got better – I got the best room in the house with huge French windows and a cute little balcony. The expense: a queenly 500 rupees a night. The view next morning was worth a million bucks and just what I expected – the sun half-heartedly fiddling with the snow-clad mountain tops, more sky-blue skies and ah…cauliflower patches! Ooh, the simple life!

Now I could have wallowed in that room until the second coming of our Lord but my uncooperative travel companions had places to do, things to see and permits to get. After a dash to the DCs office, we had our magic passports to the forbidden areas of Leh, Nubra Valley and Pangong Tso.

Leh – Part Deux – Nubra Valley

The journey to Nubra valley follows in a similar vein; the vehicle – a Safari DiCor, our driver – a slight, younger, teen punk version of Tashi who brought to light our deep-seated love for Ladakhi music. More superlatives adorn the mountain-scape without any fuss.

The BRO plays a huge role in ensuring the presence of a nearly-motorable road all around Ladakh with scant regard to what the landscape has to say about it. Founded in 1960, it is THE premier and most prestigious road construction agency in the country. Their warning boards keep you constant company on the roads in and around Leh. The Deepak unit of our mighty BRO has built, constantly rebuilds and maintains the road between Manali and Sarchu. The Himank unit takes over after this and their whacky safety slogans ranging from the simply inane to pure genius spread many a grin all around Ladakh. A sampling of some of the best ones on the road for your reading pleasure:

“Be gentle on my curves”

“Speed is the knife that cuts life”

“This is a Highway, not a runway”

“Don’t gossip, let him drive”

“Safety on road is Safe Tea at home”

“If you are married, divorce speed”

and the winner

“Love thy neighbour, but not while driving”

Amen.

The brothers of BRO-Himank certainly deserve to be called the Mountain Tamers. This is serious business – many a life has been laid down to keep this road up and usable by the military, even through the year sometimes.

Dark, big, bushy-tailed yaks dot the landscape. Patches of fertile green valley play hide-and-seek with the mountains as we wind down. The road to Nubra Valley (geography lesson here) cuts across a dramatic flat plain that shimmers in the heat. As our DiCor zooms across, I can’t help but imagine that we are in one of those fancy 4-wheel drive ads with a matching Springsteen-esque rock’n'roll beat to boot. Our ever-pleasant driver informs us that all that glitters on that river bed is indeed, gold. I believe him.

First stop, the Diskit monastery. The road up to the precariously wedged monastery gives us a premonition of the fabulous view awaiting us at the top. The Gompa itself seems unassuming at first. There’s your standard hole-in-the-floor Ladakhi loo. There are the prayer wheels, big, medium, small. And then there are steps that lead up, up and away. It’s a slightly arduous climb to the higher levels of the monastery and well worth the effort. The view is superlative. The monks are peaceful. I sit beside a friendly-looking monk, make some small talk and then drift into silence.

Something gently, surely overwhelms you. The view? The clouds casting deep shadows that glide grimly across the distant plain? The Gompa? The wind moans, tone in tune to what I imagine the monks deep throat chants would sound like. The inevitable question – could I sit in silent contemplation for a lifetime? A slight tingling. Is it the mountains talking? Questions sit heavy on the head as you leave Diskit monastery.

Hunder’s famous sand dunes stick out like a sore thumb in the otherwise picture-perfect, fecund Nubra valley. The two-humped Bactrian camel is a novel sight. They are stinky, good-humored and cute. Unfortunately, less than a 1000 of these creatures are left in the wild and they are on the Critically Endangered list. Very soon, only the domesticated species will remain. We end up doing the very-touristy, very-cliched and very-fun camel ride seated between the two humps which I understand from my friends can be very disconcerting for the male of our species! I watch, slightly taken back as one of the camels rubs him/herself contentedly against my jeans.

The sand dunes get to us; we turn 14. We skim down the dunes, breathless. The guys fall into the sand, breaking the dunes and narrowly avoiding camel poo. We get some modeling shots against the blue sky and white sand. We sit on top of a dune. God is playing with the clouds, now we can see His fingers (it’s a he, the fingers don’t have nail polish you see, my friend spouts). We settle down on top of a dune just in time for the magic show hosted by no less than the sun. To our left, it’s definitely dusk; the sun has just angled below the cliff. We turn right to see the rest of the valley still drenched in sunlight. Now, slowly, the scene dissolves in a mystic haze right before our eyes.

Silver, shimmering silk and smoke. ’Even the valley is smoking’, another wisecrack.

Another superlative awaits us at the moderately commercialized, picture-perfect Snow Leopard guest house – fresh apricots straight from the tree! Now it might look like I am going overboard over a fruit, but let me explain. Before this encounter, I already was a fan of anything apricot – this after tasting just the dried variety and various treats made out of it. (Kurbani ka Meetha, anyone?) And I had no idea what the fresh variety would be like. So after biting into the ripe, juicy, orange, finger-licking awesome treat that a fresh apricot is, I could not help but scream Hallelujah, for here indeed I had found the perfect fruit. Appealing to the eye, cool to the touch, no skin to peel, small enough to fit the palm of your hand, hard enough to withstand a fall to the earth, soft enough for a toothless 80-year old to plunge their gums into, no irritating seeds to break the softness of the flesh (just one comfortably placed seed in the center) and a taste so unique it could compete with the royal mango. My version of heaven definitely has fresh apricots in it. Do I hear you say Amen too?

Oh, I almost forgot the mighty Khardung La! At 18,000+ feet, its status as the highest motorable pass may be disputed. But it really doesn’t matter beyond a point – the pass is still awesome and 5500 m will probably be the highest point I hit in my lifetime! Possibly, the cleanest AND nicest AND highest ‘VIPs only’ loo in India sits atop the Khardung La. Happy are they who get to step inside its hallowed walls.

In a 30-40 km radius, the pretty little towns of Sumur, Diskit and Hunder along with Panamik have a lot to offer – hot springs, contemplative monasteries with old, esoteric Buddhist art, clear mountain streams you can drink from, sand dunes you could slide down on, the sun and the mountains and the valley and clouds that create shows so scintillating it will shut you up, and how can I not mention the fresh apricots!

After over 4 days spent in the comfort of a 4-wheeler, it was decided that we should bike to our next destination – the Pangong Tso lake via Karu, Shakthi, Chang La and Tangtsey. All about that dear little adventure in Part Three!

Leh 3 – Thunderbirds and Pangong Tso

Pangong Tso – Tso means lake, Pangong means, well, Pangong. It’s an interesting endorheic lake; it stretches an unbelievable 134 kilometers, yet it is only 5 kms at its broadest point. Sitting at a cool 14,000 feet, it stares back defiantly as you try to understand how it got there. 2/3rds of the lake is Chinese territory, 1/3rd is Indian, the ducks and geese on the lake however didn’t know the difference when we checked.

You have to work hard to get to Pangong Tso; we certainly had to. The route from Leh passes through the military town of Karu, the mighty Chang La (superlatives attached: second highest, steepest, toughest, mightiest, most difficult to ride on pass in Ladakh), Tangtsey and reaches Lukung and Spangmik, the two primary human settlements along the Indian side of the lake.

Now we didn’t really know about all those superlatives that describe Chang La when it was decided that we were to bike to Pangong. Thanks to a sleepy motorbike rental guy, a leaky petrol can and some inefficient decision-making, we left Leh in our two freshly-hired Thunderbirds at 10 AM against the original plan of 6 AM. Good start, I breathe to myself. The road is peaceful at first. It is cool to be fitted out in protective gear and helmets thundering away – you know, the wind in your hair and the insects in your eyes kinda stuff? There’s a lot to take in and I am glad to play the contented pillion rider. The freshly-laid black tarmac is inviting, the boys want to open up the engines and zoom. A convoy of army trucks put paid to that idea, instead they provide a good initial test to the riding and overtaking skills of my two inexperienced-on-heavy-motorbike friends.

Worse, though, is yet to come. We halt for a break. We wonder aloud what the crazy stream – the Paagal naala before Pangong holds in store for us. We’ve been specifically advised to cross it before 11 AM when the water levels are low. Looking back, and considering the sheer elan with which my friends handled it, the stream was probably the last thing we should have worried about. These roads are everything that a road is generally not supposed to be; multiply that by factors varying from 10 to 100 and you get an idea of the various degrees of ‘road’ along the way. It gets worse as you go higher and closer to the Chang La. Your respect for the BRO increases manifold when you see how difficult the terrain is. This is the real deal – man’s morale and sheer numbers taking on brutal nature. We are mostly stuck on first gear with the occasional, short-lived visit to second gear. The bike has to pull a lot, there’s me and Kiwi and there’s our big rucksack and the 10 litres of petrol, all under low oxygen conditions. Looking back on how graciously she discharged her duties, the Thunderbird has earned my respect forever.

All the boulders, little rocks, big rocks and sand lying around meant that I had to disembark from the bike (swinging my cramped leg painfully above the rucksack) every time the road got nasty. And walking at that high altitude, especially when you are unprepared for it is extremely uncomfortable unless you are moving at the pace of a snail. To put it shortly, every short walk was also an exercise in self-control by way of having to restrain myself from kicking the two guys who were putting me through this misery! (Alright alright you two, I can hear you say it’s part of the experience blah blah, but if I am going with you next time, we better have a rucksack that can walk! )

Once you cross Chang La, you are greeted by slightly better roads which eventually smoothen out into runway-like black tarmac roads, albeit slightly narrow. However, we weren’t complaining. The scenery is striking and straight out of the picture books; wild horses grazing on green meadows while the stream gurgles by, wild horses galloping against a striking mountain backdrop, little friendly marmots that look like a cross between a meerkat and a giant squirrel, large, graceful birds, yaks, wild asses(?) and the occasional shepherds. The road ends abruptly at one point and a dirt track twists downwards. We’ve hit The stream. Ok, no big deal, we’ve just got to wind down to the stream and figure out a way and a place to cross it, right? Well, almost. The only difficulty is that you simply can’t see anything that looks even remotely like a road on the other bank. Road or no road, I realize I have to get my feet wet (The water is so cold it cuts through your flesh and makes your bone go numb) and wade across it. Shoot!

We stood there, slightly nonplussed when the voice of an angel hailed us from the mountains. An angel in the form of a Ladakhi road builder drifted down, guided us to the exact point where the two bikes could cross the stream, carried our rucksack across and helped me flit over the stones with minimal difficulty as well! I wanted to give him a hug and a 100 bucks; but considering how shy these people are, we settled for just a 100 bucks. Stream crossing and high-fives done, we continue on our ride and happen upon Pangong Tso. Somewhere just before Pangong lies the dirt track diversion to Marsimik La, the real highest motorable mountain pass maintained in a rough-and-tumble state by the Indo-Tebatan border police. Its questionable whether a road exists, but the specially fitted out army vehicles do make their laborious way up this pass.

The first settlement by the lake is Lukung – a collection of little tents and off-white stone buildings. There is an army settlement not far from the huts which also hosts a souvenir shop and a visitor’s centre of some kind. We walk down to the shores of the lake, triumphant and tired. For some reason that I can’t remember, we decide to ride further and find accommodation in the next town, Spangmik. The road beyond Lukung is just dirt track and after some distance forks into two, one road leading up in to the mountains and another winding down across the plain. For some reason, we choose to go uphill.

Progress is excruciatingly slow. The road has pretty much given up and stopped existing. Dusk falls quickly. And the wind turns extremely cold as the sun sinks. The road seems to lead to nowhere at all. We realize we might have taken the wrong route. Suddenly the hostility of our surroundings engulf us, it is a tiny bit unnerving and we decide to turn back. Enough adventure for the day, I think. The ‘luxury tents’ in Lukung cost more than the off-white rooms. We settle for a room for the night and crash gratefully, but not before a stomach-filling dinner of dal-roti-sabzi and a soul-filling view of the Milky Way.

The lake is stunning, but our ride back beckons. The boys are more comfortable on their bikes and the ride promises to be better as we know what to expect. The stream crossing is actually fun (it was, right guys?) and I graciously cross over with the heavy camera to take photos of the heroics!

We stop at the Peace Hotel to meet the marmots and a big black-necked crane and have a bowl of the yummiest Maggi noodles ever.

Soon its back to boulders and little rocks, medium rocks and big rocks! This time we halt at Chang La to have some of the free mint chai, buy an ‘army’ sunglass, take some photos. We chat up with an ex-army man who had visited here with Rajiv Gandhi. He informs us that he’s visiting here again with his wife and son who is posted around here. The son puts an abrupt end to the conversation, ‘Papa, chalo’. We wind our way down the steep roads and reach Leh just as my spine and I were beginning to get sore again.

It’s fun to ride a big motorbike around this place. Fellow motor-bikers behave like brothers; they smile through their helmets, wave, flash a thumbs-up there, a V-sign here and stop to help you if you seem to be in trouble. People who travel in 4-wheelers throw admiring glances at you and want to take photos of themselves on your bikes (not you though!). They speak to you and want to know how it’s been riding around. You can’t help but say, ’twas ok, pretty good’ and mean it in spite of however miserably your back ached because of that stupid backpack! And I am not quite sure why, but a Thunderbird thud-thudding away against the backdrop of those rough, untamed mountains is among the most appealing sights I’ve ever seen.

It’s time to leave. Bags packed. Bills settled. We reach the airport just as the Jet Airways flights comes in for a landing at the Leh airport. It’s inclined at such a precarious angle on the approach to the airport that I am half-sure it’s going to crash. But that’s normal at Leh – every thing is a little extreme in this place. I gratefully accept the window seat offered to me (thanks buddy!) and as our flight takes off, I sit tight as the plane’s wing gets dramatically close to the mountain ranges. The views of the Trans-Himalaya are needless to say, super awesome. The mountains stretch across forever. There are great sheets of snow that hardly a living soul has stepped on, deep gorges eroded by water and glaciers over the millenia. Serenity and mystery. The whine of the engines is distracting and I recite my goodbyes in my head…

Good bye Rimchen and Shanti guest house and huge French windows and little balcony
and apricots and snow-capped peaks and fresh mountain air and clear streams
and big bad passes and bleak mountain roads and galloping horses and bar-headed geese
and friendly marmots and white snow and cutting wind and cold desert
and sand dunes and two-humped camels and seabuckthorn and friendly taxi-drivers
and generous angels and contented people and herbed maggi noodles and thunderbirds!

Au revoir! We’ll be back!

LEH

Theorem: Don't count your chickens before they hatch.
Corollary: Don't write your travelogue before you travel.

However, I am led to understand that Leh calls for a celebratory post way before you actually get on to that jetplane for Delhi. So here goes nothing! Mountain sickness, absent loos, sleet and ice, lack of oxygen, higher fluid retention in the brain and lungs, nausea, dizziness - all promise to create a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious experience! I await Leh, breathless already!